Natasha Trethewey"s muscular, luminous poems explore the complexmemory of the American South--history that belongs to allAmericans. The sequence forming the spine of the collection followsthe Native Guard, one of the first black regiments mustered into servicein the Civil War. In Trethewey"s hometown of Gulfport, Mississippi, aplaque honors Confederate POWs, but there is no memorial to thesevanguard Union soldiers. Native Guard is both a pilgrimage and anelegy, as Trethewey skillfully employs a variety of poetic forms to createa lyrical monument to these forgotten voices. Interwoven are poems honoring Trethewey"s mother and recallingher fraught childhood--her parents" interracial marriage was still illegalin 1966 Mississippi. Native Guard is a haunting, beguiling narrative, caught in the intersections of public and personal testament. As RitaDove proclaimed, "Here is a young poet in full possession of her craft."